The Gifts of 2006

Tough to make an inclusive list of my gifts this year, so I'll do some highlights:
Hannah - the girl who made me a mommy and the girl who showed me the mommy possible within me; the girl I'll miss every single day the rest of my life.
Hayden - the boy who wanted nothing more than his mommy's full attention now has it and through him, my mothering evolution continues.
The Unschool Community - those who inspire me with their wisdom every day, with their shared stories and inspiration; the gifts of support, love and gratitude that continue to pour into our lives (ah, the computer, the quilt, the flowers, the words, the gifts, the music...)
My Friends who should be Family - the whole lot of you people who come one by one into my universe, showing me not only who I am but better still, whom I can be; for those who have come to me for the first time, those who have always been here and those who have returned: I'm so glad we're here together.
Live and Learn - what would I do without this commune? I don't wanna know, I don't even want to imagine... Kelly Lovejoy, your gift to our world is immeasurable.
Bemidji - the lake forest utopia (complete with amazing unschoolers) comforting, healing and accepting place for my entire family. Not to mention the place I got my latest tattoo :)
ABQ - What a great healing city, filled with my favoritest unschoolers ever, the aaaaaahhhhhh of a wood burning hottub, falling in love, and the desert residing prairie dogs.
Corvallis - Really, what could be better than Fair Trade, Organic coffee with Unschoolers for company? Okay it's coffee, unschoolers, challa and LOVE!
Rapid City - Once thought of as a terrifically conservative place filled with haunting Hannah memories is now a place of comfort and love, filled with new happy memories of me and the Boy.
My crazy family - nothing in the world makes me feel more normal than my functionally disfunctional family members. If they weren't who they are, I certainly wouldn't be who *I* am.
Kar Karma God - From Hermione Honda to the amazing Loaner Windstar to our New Year beginning with Howard Honda.
Art - the inspiration to express myself through the tiny (ha!) world of ATCs and to share said inspiration with others; my beading expertise and my luck and finding just the right design for the moment.
Music - From Amy Steinberg for inspiration, to Danny Schmidt for my theme song, to the peek into others' unschooling lives via Imagination Tribe soundtracks.
Media - From Elizabethtown to The Secret, my world is a'rockin!
....I know there's more, I know there are gifts I've yet to open who's seeds have been planted in 2006 and will bloom in 2007.
So dear reader, thank you for being here, for tolerating my diatribe and for contributing to making my world a much better place.

random thoughts from the forest

*I'm thinking, after finding a 5 year old journal of mine, that I may have some vested interest in my relationship conflicts with Hayden. yeah, yeah, yeah Tigers hate Monkeys which has been my unfortunate mantra with the boy, since conception. What I've come to realize (thanks Marty and Madelyn) that yeah, the chittering, bouncing monkey can be incredibly annoying to the introspective, pondering tiger... doesn't mean either have to be pissed off, doesn't mean there can't be an amicable relationship; just means there is no wrong in this combination, just means we gotta figure out how the monkey and the tiger can make this work. So the monkey inspires the tiger to be more free-spirited and the tiger inspires the monkey to slow down and think. hmmmm
*We're moving, we're awaiting our new home to appear, wherever that may be... we already give our thanks for the next perfect place for us to be.
*I am patient. I am the kind of friend who can await my loved ones emergence from cocoon time. On their own schedules.
*Snow in the forest is beautiful. Thank you Hayden for bringing me here to enjoy it (thanks for conjuring it!!)
*I am the alpha and the omega. Not only as a mommy, but as diana, in my entire existence and experience of this Life.

Holy Holydays!

aaahhhh! So glad the craziness of Xmas is over... and yet, any kind of ending makes me sad...

just about anything can make me sad at this point, though, so it's not to be taken terribly seriously, which is sad in itself...
I'm bleeding, so I'm prone to crying...
My kid died, so I'm prone to crying...
I carry XX, so I'm prone to crying...
I'm all the fuck alone, I'm SO prone to crying...
I need sleep, so I'm prone to crying...
...gonna go work on that one, it seems to be the only one on the list fixable

Nani's Cloud

Get your cloud here

So as to be less disruptive to others...

Gemini - 12/23/06 - You can talk about intense issues now in a way that others won't find threatening. Nevertheless, you might not know when to quit and could push your opinions too vehemently. It's fortunate that your charm is working so well now, for you just might need it to smooth over the feathers you could inadvertently ruffle. Calming your own anxiety first can help you be less disruptive to everyone else.

Merry Winter!

It's the first full day of Winter. Another new season. The Wheel keeps turning. At promptly 6:22 pm, I welcomed the returning Sun with a Chas'-new-house full o'people in Vermilion by lighting a candle in my Solstice Angel holder. We got her last year and I'm so glad to continue the ritual with her and my real-life angel. I brought tall glass vigil candles, which we decorated individually for our ritual. Food was great, company was amazing! Hayden made immediate friends with Owen, whom we will be returning to Vermilion to spend more time with!! We created circle with my favorite invocation ;), we went round the circle and welcomed others into our circle with us in Spirit. We took turns lighting our candles from the Source we lit at the moment of Winter's onset. We then spoke of where our Light will cast out shadows in the coming year.
There were countless 'round the kitchen counter and out on the deck and in the garage wisdom sharing and witty conversation. Enlightenment was the theme ::g::
This morning we had breakfast with Chas and Colette (we rode down with Colette's cousin, Karla), then coffee downtown so the boys could meet up for a little bit before the holiday craziness.
We had the ladies soup/gift exchange party tonight. It was much more fun than I imagined. We had Dee, Darla, Donna, Bunnie, Me, DeAnna, Linda, Kelly, Emma, Trisha, Suzy and Karna in it this year, and I've gotta admit the gift caliber was not as sucky as previous years may have been ;) My parents will celebrate their 39th anniversary tomorrow (not so bad for a one night stand!) at the family's Christmas gathering; then more Kraziness at Karna's -- Will be a fun-filled somethin or other!! :)

continuing my courage...

Strength

May courage be your ally.

Deck: Cagliostro

More about this card

My Daily Tarot Reading

card art © US Games

What has traditionally been known as the Strength card represents Nature which, however wild in its primal form, is tamed by our subtler, finer (feminine, interior) self. The will and passion of our instinctive nature does not need to be broken, but refined and brought to consciousness -- so that all levels of Creation, inner and outer, may come into harmony.

The feminine soul-force contains a persuasive power that can nurture and induce cooperation from others, stilling disruptive energies by harmonizing differences in the spirit of collective good will.

Mimi and me

My mother in law called last night. I think it's the first time we've spoken since Hayden's birthday. Strange how it's always great to talk to her, to reconnect; and yet, when we don't speak, this bizarre fear settles into that empty space, allowing longer and longer times without communication. We had a long talk about what's been going on in her life and her family (happy to report some family members have regained their senses and communication is at least occurring). We commiserated about Xmas and how hard it is to get the Spirit (the gumption ::g::) this year. I told her of our Oregon vacation and Mitch's Death Day celebration... the little things I've managed to accomplish for the holidays this year...
Gramma Baby's sick. Like this is it kinda sick. The steady downhill run towards Heaven. Towards the great big party awaiting their Guest of Honor.
Her Parkinson's is getting worse. She's using a walker to get around. Bob and Armida are still joyfilled at the honor of caring for her. They have help come in a few hours a day, with *visitors* who come when they need to be away in the evening. She's still Gran. She's still full of Love; though the Life may be draining.
She'll be 89 in February... one of the most evolved humans I've ever met. Her heart is open and free and big enough to crawl inside and feel safe. For a woman who started her wife/mother career at the same age I began my periods, she is seriously unjaded, no cynicism lives in her. She's a puff-ball capped cave of Wisdom. (her hair is as soft as it looks, like a Q-tip, none of that wiry grey stuff, it's a white cloud hovering around her crown chakra ::g::) I like to say she's still collecting her marbles, hasn't lost a one and still knows where they're all located!

Of all the people in Mitch's family, I love her the most. I think we all do. She's the shit. She's the context that makes this whole jumbled up congregation of relatives make sense. She loves us all. It's easy to love with her around.
I want to see her again. I want to have coffee and toast and cry and remember and laugh. I want her to tell me that it's all part of the plan and it will all work out. I want tortillas and carnitas. I want some chile. I wanna carry some of her Light in my heart, always.
We're going out the beginning of April, before the conference. Mimi's planning to retire near then, so she'll possibly be home full-time. 'twill be good for our hearts to drive the beautiful coast North to Oregon.

Sexy Santa

Check out this

The Secret - (a) for action

Yes, this movie will change your life... if you let it!
It's seeping in and yesterday I saw The Secret in action, right in my very own life.
I had an appointment with Santa yesterday afternoon and I needed to coordinate some company for Hayden. He was insistent in how he wanted things to go and it was in direct conflict with how Eli wanted things to go. I got all aarrgghh and tense and grumbly. As I was talking myself down, I bumped the curb right on that one spot where it pokes out a bit and punctured the sidewall. Yeah. I breathed deep and let it end there. Hayden and Eli worked it out, I got a ride to and from the Santa thing.
My mom picked me up and we went shopping. She offered to go in with me on a gift for Hayden, we decided on an MP3 player. As we're driving and deciding where to go... {side rant warning: she had already scoped out Wal-Mart and, well, I just couldn't do it, I couldn't use Wal-Mart.com for music subscription, even for three months (call me Frank Zappa)} I notice no one is turning left, so I say, Let's go the opposite direction of everyone else and go to Best Buy. It was crazy there, but still within diana toleration levels :) Mom asked me what I want for xmas and I told her I'd like her to buy the MP3 player as my gift and let me keep my cash for the rest of the month, and she agreed (for those who know DeLila, this is big breakthrough!!) and we got the boy a pretty cool one, with a 2 mo. subscription. We picked up a microwave for Gramma Bunnie; we found one with a built in toaster... it was too corny/effective to pass up. Mom grumbled a minute about going over the $120; I pointed out it was certainly $5 cool and what a great thing to do, lalalalalala; she breathed and found some joy in it. Enough joy that some spilled over to the check out line, where I picked up the $10 Muppets/John Denver Christmas CD and she bought it for me. We're having a great time, in line and whadayaknow she gets some crazy bonus of a $15 Best Buy gift card for herself!!! See!! Exactly the amount of her spontaneous generosity!
And just to round it off, Uncle Troy works at a tire place, with a mad supply of free tires. Since the tire popped in front of his house, it was no biggie to put the van in the garage and take the rim to work today and put another tire on it.
the secret is: Life is Good!